Projective's Strawberry is the project-centric production asset management platform in a market where most competitors organize around assets first and projects second. Where conventional MAM systems catalog finished files and apply metadata after the fact, Strawberry wraps its management layer around the editorial project itself, tracking which media belongs to which project, which editor has which files checked out, which assets are shared across multiple timelines, and which content can be safely archived or deleted when a project completes. 

The distinction is deliberate: Projective positions Strawberry not as a MAM but as a PAM (Production Asset Management) system, purpose-built for work-in-progress creative environments rather than finished-asset libraries. This project-first philosophy has earned Strawberry deployments across broadcasters, post-production facilities, advertising agencies, and brand content teams worldwide. 

MullenLowe, a global advertising agency, deployed Strawberry in collaboration with Dell and CAE. The Swiss news provider 20 Minutes (20 Minuten) uses Strawberry and Skies for editorial collaboration and archive access. Strawberry Multisite won the Future's Best of Show Award at IBC 2025, presented by TVBEurope, evaluated by a panel of engineers and industry experts for innovation, feature set, and industry application. The platform also holds an IBC Broadcast Engineering Award.

The key evaluation question for production teams is whether a project-aware management layer that sits on top of existing storage infrastructure aligns with their workflow needs, or whether a platform that presents cloud storage as a directly mountable drive provides a more immediate editorial experience. 

Shade represents that second approach: an Intelligent Cloud NAS where AI-powered search, storage, and review and approval converge in a single mounted filesystem. Strawberry organizes the project layer between storage and the editor. Shade collapses that layer into the storage itself.

What Is Strawberry Best Used For?

Strawberry operates as a management and collaboration framework that sits between shared storage infrastructure and the creative applications editors use daily. The platform does not provide its own storage, instead, it manages content across whatever storage the facility already has in place, whether Dell/EMC Isilon, Rohde & Schwarz, Qumulo, LucidLink, cloud object storage (S3, Wasabi, Backblaze, Cloudflare), or LTO tape archive through integrations with Archiware P5, Ngenea, and XenData. This storage-agnostic architecture means that Strawberry adds project intelligence to an existing infrastructure investment rather than replacing it.

The platform is organized around three deployment models:

• Strawberry On-Site is a single-facility installation for creative teams working from one location, spanning across different storage tiers including cloud and archive. 

• Strawberry Multi-Site extends the same project environment across multiple physical locations, enabling global editorial teams to work on shared projects with unified metadata, permissions, and project transfers between facilities. 

• Strawberry Skies adds a cloud and hybrid layer, hosted by Projective with LucidLink-powered Skies Drive connectivity, enabling remote users to interact with on-site or multi-site installations for external collaboration, remote editing, and review and approval workflows.

Deep NLE integration is central to the platform's value. Strawberry provides panels for Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Avid Media Composer, allowing editors to search, preview, manage assets, and work on projects directly within their editing environment. Avid bin locking is an integrated feature, addressing a longstanding pain point in shared Avid workflows. The platform generates proxies automatically via dedicated encoding nodes (24/7 proxy generation on physical or virtual hardware), enabling remote preview and lightweight editing.

With Strawberry 7 (announced December 2025), the platform introduced AI-powered transcription in over 99 languages with automatic speaker labels, making the entire media library searchable by spoken content. Transcripts are editable, and spoken-word search results can be imported directly into Premiere Pro as subclips. The platform also introduced bulk approval actions, a concurrent (floating) licensing model for Skies, responsive mobile review and approval, and a redesigned user interface. Projective's AI philosophy, articulated at the DPP Leaders' Briefing 2025, explicitly avoids agentic or generative AI in favor of what they term "media intelligence", AI that operates within the structured project context Strawberry already maintains.

A distinctive technical feature is the Proactive Deduplication Service, which identifies and eliminates duplicate media files across projects without disrupting the creative process. Strawberry tracks which media is used by which project, so when a project completes, the intelligent ingest feature preserves used content while safely identifying deletable rushes. One-click project archiving packages the entire project (folder structures, assets, metadata, permissions) for archive or retrieval as a single operation.

Strawberry Pricing Overview & Cost Considerations

Projective does not publish per-user or per-seat pricing on its website. Pricing is configured based on deployment model (On-Site, Multi-Site, or Skies), user count, infrastructure requirements, and the specific modules enabled. Prospective buyers are directed to book a demo for configuration-specific discussions. (Strawberry by Projective)

The Strawberry Skies licensing model transitioned (as of Strawberry 7) from named-user licensing to a concurrent (floating) model. Under this model, a license seat is consumed only when a user is actively logged in to a specific Skies tier (Reviewer, Contributor, or Creator). Administrators can provision any tier for an unlimited number of users, with the maximum simultaneous logins determined by the number of seats purchased. This floating model is designed for the variable staffing patterns common in post-production, freelancers cycling in and out, part-time contributors, and seasonal production spikes.

The Strawberry Skies cloud deployment is hosted by Projective, replacing on-premise hardware maintenance with subscription pricing. For facilities with existing storage investments (Isilon, Qumulo, or similar), Strawberry On-Site adds management capability without replacing storage, meaning the software cost layers on top of existing infrastructure rather than consolidating it.

Several cost factors are worth evaluating:

• Strawberry requires underlying storage infrastructure, the platform manages storage but does not include it, so the total cost of ownership includes both the Strawberry licensing and the storage layer (whether on-premise hardware or cloud object storage). 

• Proxy encoding nodes require dedicated server resources for 24/7 proxy generation.

• The Multi-Site and Skies deployment models add licensing complexity for organizations with distributed teams.

• The value proposition scales with the number of concurrent projects and the degree of storage management complexity, smaller teams with simple storage configurations may not realize the full benefit of the project management layer.

Strawberry Reviews: User Feedback & Reported Considerations

Strawberry does not maintain a high-volume listing on major review aggregators such as G2 or Capterra. The available evidence comes primarily from published customer deployments and partner testimonials rather than aggregated user scoring.

What the customer evidence reflects

Media Prima's deployment is the most quantified case study available (Media Prima Case Study). After implementing Strawberry across approximately 50 users, the broadcaster reported an eightfold increase in post-production efficiency. Users praised the platform's intuitive interface and specifically highlighted the ability to preview, annotate, and comment directly within the application, eliminating the need for external review tools. The browser-based interface addressed a critical challenge, compatibility across operating systems, while the Dell Isilon integration preserved Media Prima's existing storage investment.

TUI's adoption of Strawberry Skies demonstrates the platform's cloud-native trajectory. The global travel company cited operational efficiency, collaboration capabilities, and sustainability (reduced physical travel and lower power consumption) as primary benefits. The cloud-based deployment freed TUI's creative teams from on-premise infrastructure constraints.

The LucidLink strategic partnership (announced January 2024) merits attention as a technical indicator (Projective + LucidLink Partnership). Derek Barrilleaux, Projective's CEO, acknowledged that cloud-based post-production had historically struggled with latency for editorial needs, and that LucidLink's file accessibility, combined with Strawberry's project management framework, addressed that gap. The partnership produced Skies Drive (powered by LucidLink), positioning Strawberry as a hybrid on-premise/cloud platform rather than a purely on-premise tool.

Considerations identified in user and market commentary

The primary consideration for production teams is the storage dependency model. Strawberry is a management and orchestration layer, not a storage platform. Teams must bring their own storage (or use Projective-hosted Skies), which means evaluating Strawberry alongside a separate storage decision. For teams that want a single vendor providing both storage and management, this two-vendor model adds procurement and support complexity.

A second consideration is NLE coverage. Strawberry provides deep integration with Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Avid Media Composer. DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro are not listed as having dedicated panel integrations. Teams working primarily in Resolve or Final Cut Pro should assess whether Strawberry's non-panel workflows serve their editorial needs.

A third consideration is the learning curve associated with project-based management. Strawberry's project structure, with its concepts of project mounting, bin locking, checkout/check-in, deduplication services, and tiered storage management, introduces workflow abstractions that simpler file-access solutions do not require. One user testimonial noted that most editors learned the system in one or two sessions, but the structural concepts may require more adjustment for teams accustomed to unmanaged shared storage.

Strawberry Alternatives for Video Production Teams

Production teams evaluating Strawberry are typically prioritizing project management, shared storage orchestration, NLE integration, or multi-site collaboration. The alternatives range from cloud-native MAMs with different storage models, to proxy-streaming platforms, to solutions that eliminate the management layer entirely by presenting storage as a direct filesystem mount. To see exactly how Strawberry compares to Shade and other MAM platforms, see our guide comparing the best MAM platforms for video production. 

Strawberry's Production Asset Management Architecture vs Shade's Production Infrastructure

Strawberry's model: project management layer on top of existing storage. Strawberry sits between the storage infrastructure and the creative applications, adding project structure, permissions, metadata, deduplication, proxy generation, review workflows, and archive management. Editors interact with media through Strawberry's panels in Premiere Pro, After Effects, or Avid, with the platform managing which files belong to which projects and who has access to what. Storage can be on-premise (Isilon, Qumulo), hybrid (Skies Drive via LucidLink), or cloud (S3). The platform's value increases with organizational complexity, more projects, more editors, more storage tiers, more sites.

Shade's model: the management layer is the storage. ShadeFS mounts as a local drive on Mac or Windows. The storage, AI-powered search, metadata, and review and approval tools are unified in a single platform. Editors open files directly from the mounted drive in any NLE, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Avid Media Composer, or Final Cut Pro. There is no separate project management layer between the editor and the files. AI handles automated tagging, facial recognition, and transcription as part of the storage platform itself, rather than as a service running on top of a separate storage backend.

In day‑to‑day workflows, the practical difference centers on architectural philosophy. Strawberry's project-centric model provides granular control over who accesses which media, which projects share which assets, which content is archived versus active, and how storage tiers are managed across facilities. This control is precisely what large broadcast operations and multi-facility post houses need. Shade's unified model trades that project-level orchestration for editorial simplicity, editors work with files the same way they work with local storage, with AI and review tools available natively rather than through a separate management interface.

Where Strawberry holds a clear advantage: multi-facility operations requiring unified project management across locations, teams with complex storage hierarchies (online, nearline, archive, cloud) that need intelligent tiering, and workflows where Avid bin locking and project-level permissions are operational requirements. The Proactive Deduplication Service addresses a real cost problem for facilities managing thousands of projects with overlapping media. The concurrent licensing model for Skies efficiently handles the variable staffing patterns of freelance-heavy post-production.

Where Shade holds the advantage: teams that want their storage, AI, and collaboration tools in a single platform rather than a management layer on top of a separate storage decision. Teams working across all four major NLEs (not just Adobe and Avid) through a single filesystem mount. Teams that prefer operational simplicity, mount a drive, start editing, over project-centric workflow management. And teams that want flat $20 per seat per month pricing with AI included, rather than custom-quoted licensing across deployment models and user tiers.

Feature Comparison: Strawberry vs Shade

Where This Difference Becomes Operational

Consider a mid-size post-production house in London with satellite offices in Manchester and Dublin, serving advertising agency clients. The facility operates 20 edit suites across all three locations (12 London, 5 Manchester, 3 Dublin), with a rotating roster of 15 staff editors and 10-15 freelancers per month. Editors work primarily in Premiere Pro with a significant Avid Media Composer contingent for broadcast deliverables.

The facility manages a 200TB production storage tier on Dell Isilon, a 500TB nearline tier, and a multi-petabyte LTO archive. Each month, the facility runs 30-40 concurrent projects for different agency clients, each with different access permissions and deliverable specifications.

In a Strawberry workflow, the platform manages the relationship between all three offices, the storage tiers, and every active project. A freelancer arriving for a two-week engagement is provisioned a Skies concurrent seat, mounts the project through the Strawberry panel in Premiere Pro, and immediately sees only the media assigned to their project, with permissions preventing access to other client assets. As projects complete, one-click archiving packages everything to LTO via the Archiware P5 integration, while the Proactive Deduplication Service identifies shared media across projects and reclaims storage on the production tier. Avid editors use bin locking to prevent conflicts on shared broadcast sequences. Project transfers between London and Manchester happen through Multi-Site with full metadata and permission inheritance.

In a Shade workflow, the same facility mounts a Shade drive across all 20 edit suites and all freelancer workstations. Editors in Premiere Pro, Avid, and any other application open files directly from the mounted drive. AI-powered search helps editors find assets across the full library.

Review and approval happen within the same platform. The operational distinction: Shade provides a simpler editorial model, a drive with files, but does not provide the project-level orchestration that governs which freelancer sees which client's assets, does not manage the relationship between production and nearline and LTO archive tiers, and does not offer Avid bin locking at the platform level. The facility would need to manage project isolation, storage tiering, and archive workflows through folder-level organization and separate tools rather than through a unified project management layer.

Where Strawberry has the edge in this scenario: the 30-40 concurrent projects with per-client access isolation, the three-tier storage hierarchy requiring intelligent management, the Avid bin locking requirement, and the freelancer provisioning model that concurrent Skies licensing efficiently addresses.

Where Shade has the edge: the freelancers who also work in DaVinci Resolve for color grading or Final Cut Pro for social media cuts, they get the same mounted drive experience as the Premiere Pro and Avid editors. The flat $20/seat pricing eliminates per-tier licensing complexity. And for the simpler projects where a single editor works independently, the drive-based model provides faster time-to-editing than project-provisioned panel access.

Why Production Teams Outgrow Production Asset Management

Project-centric PAM platforms solve the orchestration problem for complex multi-project environments. They do not solve the infrastructure simplification problem for teams that need shared storage, AI search, and review in a single platform without the overhead of project-level management abstractions, separate storage procurement, and custom-quoted licensing.

When to Choose Strawberry

Strawberry is the stronger choice when project-level management, multi-tier storage orchestration, and multi-site collaboration are central to daily operations:

• You operate a multi-facility post-production environment requiring unified project management across locations with consistent metadata, permissions, and project transfer capabilities.

• Your workflow involves complex storage hierarchies (online production, nearline, LTO archive, cloud) that require intelligent tiering, archive management, and the ability to browse archived content through proxy previews.

• You need Avid Media Composer bin locking as a platform-level feature alongside Adobe Creative Cloud integration.

• Your staffing model involves rotating freelancers who need project-scoped access isolation, Strawberry's concurrent Skies licensing and project permissions address this directly.

• You already have a significant storage investment (Dell Isilon, Qumulo, or similar) and need a management layer rather than a replacement storage platform.

Why Production Teams Outgrow Production Asset Management

Project-centric PAM platforms solve the orchestration problem for complex multi-project environments. They do not solve the infrastructure simplification problem for teams that need shared storage, AI search, and review in a single platform without the overhead of project-level management abstractions, separate storage procurement, and custom-quoted licensing.

When to Choose Shade

Shade is the stronger choice when editorial simplicity, NLE flexibility, and pricing transparency take priority over project-level orchestration:

• You want editors working directly with files through a mounted cloud drive rather than through project-managed panel access, reducing the abstraction between editor and media.

• Your team works across all four major NLEs, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Avid Media Composer, Final Cut Pro, and needs a storage and AI solution that serves all applications equally through a standard filesystem mount.

• You prefer a single vendor providing storage, AI search, and collaboration tools rather than a management layer that requires a separate storage infrastructure decision.

• You prefer flat pricing at $20 per seat per month with AI features included, rather than custom-quoted licensing across deployment models and user tiers.

• Your team values operational speed, mount a drive and start editing within minutes, over the project-provisioned access model that Strawberry's structure provides.

FAQ

Is Strawberry good for video production?

Yes, particularly for post-production environments with complex project management needs, multi-tier storage, and Adobe or Avid editorial workflows. Strawberry's project-centric architecture addresses real challenges around asset isolation between clients, storage management across production and archive tiers, and collaboration across distributed facilities. The limitations for production teams are NLE coverage (deep integration is Adobe and Avid only, not Resolve or Final Cut Pro) and the requirement for separate storage infrastructure. For teams seeking a unified storage and management platform with broader NLE support, Shade with ShadeFS provides both storage and AI search in a single mountable drive.

How much does Strawberry cost?

Projective does not publish standard pricing. Strawberry is configured based on deployment model (On-Site, Multi-Site, or Skies), user count, and feature requirements. The Skies cloud deployment uses a concurrent (floating) licensing model where seats are consumed only during active sessions, which benefits organizations with variable freelancer rosters. Prospective buyers should request a demo for configuration-specific pricing. For comparison, Shade's pricing is a flat $20 per seat per month with unlimited AI features.

What are the best Strawberry alternatives?

For video production teams, the most relevant alternatives depend on the primary workflow need. For unified cloud storage and AI search accessible to all NLEs, Shade (Intelligent Cloud NAS with built-in review tools) eliminates the separate storage decision. For enterprise proxy streaming with deep Adobe integration, IPV Curator provides 2% proxy editing over low-bandwidth connections.

For facility-grade MAM with integrated storage hardware, EditShare FLOW pairs storage and management from a single vendor. For enterprise content supply chain orchestration, Dalet Flex operates at broadcast scale.

Does Strawberry work with DaVinci Resolve?

Strawberry's dedicated panel integrations are available for Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Avid Media Composer. DaVinci Resolve is not listed as having a native Strawberry panel. Resolve users working within a Strawberry-managed environment can access media on the managed storage, but without the panel-level search, project management, and checkout/check-in workflow available to Adobe and Avid users. Teams using Resolve as a primary NLE should evaluate whether panel-less workflows meet their needs or whether an NLE-agnostic approach like Shade provides a better fit.

What is the best PAM for multi-site post-production?

For multi-facility post-production requiring project-level management across sites, Strawberry Multi-Site is purpose-built for this use case, providing unified project views, transfer capabilities, and consistent metadata across locations. For teams that need multi-site access without the project management layer, Shade's cloud-native architecture makes the same files available from any location through a mounted drive, though without Strawberry's project orchestration and storage tiering capabilities.

Final Assessment

Strawberry occupies a distinctive position in the production technology landscape by focusing on the editorial project as the organizing unit rather than the individual asset. This orientation produces measurably different operational outcomes for facilities managing dozens of concurrent projects, rotating freelancer pools, and multi-tier storage hierarchies. The IBC 2025 Best of Show award for Strawberry Multisite validates the platform's innovation in hybrid on-premise/cloud project management. The LucidLink partnership and Skies cloud deployment model represent a credible evolution from Strawberry's on-premise roots toward a hybrid architecture that serves both facility-based and distributed teams.

The core architectural distinction between Strawberry and Shade reflects a question about where management intelligence should reside. Strawberry positions intelligence in a dedicated management layer that orchestrates the relationship between editors, projects, and storage. Shade positions intelligence inside the storage platform itself, AI, search, review, and file access unified in a single mounted drive.

For post-production facilities with existing storage investments, complex project isolation requirements, and Adobe/Avid-centric editorial environments, Strawberry provides operational structure that a simpler file-access model cannot replicate. For teams seeking unified storage and management with NLE-agnostic access at flat $20 per seat per month pricing, Shade offers a structurally different approach where the drive is the platform.